he was bassist #1 for me... 1979 summer vacation with the family from across the street, I was 11 and searching for 'my' music. The other families late teen's stoner child hooked me up with his copy of 'Paranoid'.

I probably wrote 95% of them. Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, "bah, bah, bah" (Hums riff to "Black Sabbath") and everybody joined in and we just did it. However long the song is was how long it took us to write it. So most of the stuff was just done from jams. Like "NIB" just started with me doing the bass riff and everybody joined in. In those days we didn' t have tape recorders or anything and nobody would write stuff at home and bring it to the studio. We just used to go to the studio and jam for two or three hours and see what came out.

Did you write a lot of the early stuff while you were recording it?

Definitely ! The first record, we just went in and played it. It was like Sabbath live but in the studio, and the producerjust cut out things. One song, "Warning," went on for like thirty five minutes, and he just cut out selected bits, like the twenty minute guitar solo! (Laughs)

He has three aspects I really admire and have been an influence on me;

1. His tone - it has so much Entwistle "zing" to it but it also has an incredible "thud" factor

2. His plucking hand motion - It's very showy and makes it appear like he's working his ass off twice as hard as he really is. Admittedly, his strings are too high for me, but he really delivers the goods with respect to tone and showmanship.

3. What he did in the studio with his slides on "Supernaut" turned my head around. He isn't restrained by convention.

I remember when I first learned how to play Bassically(intro to NIB). I must have played it for 10 hours straight, stayed up all night. Definately great bass player and song writer. And to think that nowdays everybody and their mother has heard of that no-talent ass-wipe Ozzy and Butler, who wrote all the songs and made the band, making ozzy famous is practicaly forgotten. Man, I hate singers!!! happens everytime!

I think sometimes bass players get to worried about how complicated or fast a bass player is, sometimes you (we) need to just sit back and listen to what is being played and how it sounds with the rest of the band.

Geezer may not be the most "talented" players out there but what he played fit perfect with the music, and isn't that what it's all about.